Variety of rice capable of yielding 12,000 kilos?

Wednesday, 27 August 2025 00:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

I recently read in the Lanka enews a report wherein Deputy Minister Namal Karunaratne had said that researchers have found a variety of rice capable of yielding 12,000 kilos per ha. Lo and behold this is in Sri Lanka and not in Disneyland!

If true this is almost a threefold increase over the current national average yield. Such yields perhaps are possible in small controlled plots under optimum conditions. Under field conditions on commercial scale in farmers’ lands with many variables like soil, management skills, available sunshine hours and other inputs it is a very different ball game.

It was also said that so much rice would be available exceeding the staple requirement that hereafter it would be used as animal feed and in beer production. What wishful thinking!

According to some respected historians we are supposed to have exported rice. Was it during King Parakramabahu?

Any way there are questions regarding this too. How often did we export, to what countries, what were the quantities and what was our population then?

I told this story to my erstwhile roommate and batchmate Dr. Dhanapala who was the director of Batalagoda Rice Station with many ground breaking records to his credit. He thought I was joking!

Will the minister kindly be more explicit?

Gamini Peiris,

Panadura

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